Lovely Story Interrupted

It’s wonderful to be a Mets fan right now. It really is. While everybody tells jokes, the Mets have assembled a Quadruple-A lineup of guys who don’t do too much but do just enough, playing the game the right way, not shooting themselves in the foot and —

DICKEY! WOULD YOU NOT DO THAT? I KNOW KNUCKLEBALLS ARE CRUEL MISTRESSES AND SOME NIGHTS THE THINGS JUST WON’T DO WHAT YOU NEED THEM TO DO, BUT NOT TONIGHT! NOT WITH A CHANCE TO SWEEP THE BRAVES AND MOVE A GAME OVER .500!

Ahem. As I was saying, the Mets are playing within themselves, despite missing key players and facing financial uncertainty. Leading the way tonight, as usual, was the marvelous Jose Reyes, who seems like he can do anything that needs doing at any point in any game. It’s an absolute pleasure to —

MURPH! LOVE YOU, BUT YOU NEED TO PLAY FIRST BASE, NOT SOME IMAGINARY POSITION THAT’S NOT REALLY FIRST AND NOT REALLY SECOND! STUFF LIKE THAT COULD COME BACK TO BITE US, YOU KNOW!

Could we keep it down over there? Justin Turner, AKA Ginger Thunder, was back and on base any which way he needed to be, and Jason Bay showed more signs of coming around, turning in much more confident at-bats and racking up his second straight multiple-hit game. And then there was Scott Hairston, nearly forgotten, cranking a three-run bomb into the left-field stands to finish a comeback from four runs down. And the bullpen was spectacular, what with Manny Acosta (of all people) and Pedro Beato and Tim Byrdak and Jason Isringhausen and —

K-ROD! NOOOOO! AUGGHHHHH!!!!!! THAT WAS SO NOT SPECTACULAR! THAT COMPLETELY SUCKED!

Look — I have the floor here. It sure helped that the Braves played the kind of game that’s typically followed by Coach driving the station wagon angry and not making jokes or letting you tune the radio until even the dumb kid figures out that the usual postgame trip to the Tastee-Freez isn’t happening today. Fredi Gonzalez is well on his way to actually becoming Bobby Cox: He’s dumpy and looks perpetually unhappy and fumes and carps and fusses at umps and engages in low-level gamesmanship all the time. Which is —

DUDA! DIDN’T WE JUST COVER THIS WITH MURPHY!!!!

That’s enough outbursts. Sheesh! Even after K-Rod’s lamentable homer surrendered to Brooks Conrad, I had faith. The Mets weren’t playing efficiently, but they’d pull out a wild and woolly one somehow. As usual, I put my faith in Reyes. It seemed entirely possible that he would hit a home run because he had to, or steal second and then steal third and then force some hapless Brave who knew better to balk in a —

11 comments to Lovely Story Interrupted

To be fair, though, it was the Braves’ LOLpen antics and defensive bumblefuckery that allowed the Mets to tie it up and go ahead in the first place. It could have been just an ordinary, garden variety, Dickey-doesn’t-have-it(-again) loss, yawn…in fact, I had written it off as just that, and when I turned around, they had tied it, then taken the lead. And Krud was overdue for a blown save, unfortunately, he’s never going to repeat 2008 ever again (relievers only ever get one of those; even Rivera never had a streak like that).

But ain’t it the Braves’ luck; Chipper manages to kill us by proxy even when he gets taken out of the game.

And it looks like Duda has maybe a week left before they decide once and for all he’s quadruple-A.

I really hope Duda and Murphy have great series against the A’s and A’s this coming week. A chance to show the Alternate Baseball Universe what terrific full-time DH’s they’d make for some needy AL team, maybe for a couple of NL-caliber prospects. All this trade talk and it’s never about these 2 non-fielders.

This isn’t a blog, it’s a support group. Thank god for you guys. I have a pit in my gut just thinking about how they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I’m glad to see that everyone is on board with the positive here – 2 out of 3 in the house of horrors (aka the Ted) and that s**t happens.

When it looked as though the Mets might get a sweep, Gary Cohen mentioned that the last time the Mets swept a three game series at the Ted was 2007. If I remember correctly, series took place in the middle of the Mets’ downward spiral as they were losing their division lead to the Phils. At the time, I remember feeling reassured that the Mets would manage to hold onto their lead. Maybe this “balk off” loss is a good omen. I don’t know of what, although right now I’d settle for re-signing Jose Reyes.

Okay, now for the bright side. After the first out was recorded in the bottom of the 9th, I think it was Wayne Hagen stated that if K-Rod finishes off the save, he will have finished his 28th game which is more than halfway to the necessary 55 needed. That was of course the jinx that set off the collapse. But, in the glass-half-full world in which all Met fans dwell, that’s something positive to take out of this gut-wrenching, vomit-inducing, horrifically, awful, frustrating defeat at the hands of the hated Braves. So there’s always that.

[…] sense of drama, really, until the ninth, and then no drama. Nothing like Thursday night’s manic Holy Hellfest, so named per what I just kept muttering to myself over and over and over as I pieced together what […]

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